Facts
- A retail business suspected employee Leland Frease of embezzlement and hired private investigators William J. Burns and a codefendant to investigate.
- The investigators brought Frease to a hotel room and interrogated him aggressively, accusing him of taking $6,800.
- Frease signed a confession admitting $5,000 in embezzlement and paid $4,000 to the investigators.
- The State charged the investigators with extortion, alleging they threatened to accuse Frease of grand larceny to obtain money.
- At trial, Frease testified he had not embezzled.
- The defense sought to cross-examine Frease and introduce evidence tending to show he had in fact embezzled money and that the payment demanded/received was restitution.
- The trial court excluded that evidence and instructed the jury that Frease’s actual guilt and the amount of any embezzlement were immaterial.
- The jury convicted; the defendants appealed.
Issues
- Whether, in a prosecution for extortion based on threats to accuse a person of a crime, the defense is entitled to introduce evidence and cross-examine the alleged victim to show the victim committed the crime and that the amount sought was limited to restitution.
- Whether it is error to instruct the jury that the alleged victim’s guilt or innocence, and the amount of any underlying wrongdoing, are immaterial.
Decision
- The Washington Supreme Court reversed the convictions and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held it was error to exclude evidence and cross-examination bearing on whether Frease embezzled and the amount embezzled.
- The court held it was error to instruct the jury that Frease’s guilt and the amount involved were immaterial.
Legal Principles
- A threat to accuse another of a crime constitutes extortion only when used to obtain a wrongful gain.
- Obtaining restitution by threatening prosecution is not extortion if the demand is limited to the specific amount actually embezzled.
- In an extortion case premised on threats of criminal accusation, evidence of the alleged victim’s actual wrongdoing and the relationship between the amount demanded/obtained and the amount taken is material to whether the payment was wrongful gain or restitution.
- A jury instruction removing from consideration whether the alleged victim committed the underlying offense, and in what amount, is erroneous when those facts bear on the wrongfulness element of extortion.
Conclusion
The court ordered a new trial because the defendants were entitled to present evidence that the payment was limited to restitution for actual embezzlement, and the jury could not be instructed to disregard the alleged victim’s guilt and the amount taken when deciding whether the defendants extorted money by wrongful threats.